Another cattle series? ...maybe

There is a Japanese proverb, saying "you can't expect eels under a willow tree all the time". It has a short story behind it but I would leave it for your imagination. I guess you can get a sense of it even from this simple sentence.

What I'm getting at is I might try looking for another eel under a willow tree because of a success of the last Cattle Gaze series. Then I went to North Bend this morning to take some cattle photos at a cattle farm.

Weather was nice and warm this morning. They looked very comfortable grazing grass. When I set my camera at them, they started walking toward me. The same reaction I got last time. Interesting.

Time to put thicker paint

Now I'm satisfied with bigger shapes. I don't have to worry about them any longer. Means it's time to change gears and apply right colors with thicker paint.

Light was coming from behind me over my left shoulder. The bank on the right looked warmer than the left bank. I hope I could translate those to right colors.

East meets West...when will thin paint meet thick one?

After the mediocre outcome of Animal Trail, I've moved on to this Valley Creek. I'm actually not disappointed with the outcome. Because it was my first piece that I tackled with snow. I knew I couldn't expect too much out of it. I failed with the snow covered trees by picking up a too small brush. I'll put it at my web site after next sunny day.

With this piece, I'm thinking I would try more thicker layers of paint. Since no bigger trees are in the foreground or middle ground, I don't have to worry much about shapes of trees with snow or their shadows but colors of bigger shapes. At this stage, I'm still putting thinner layers as you can vaguely see in this photo. Eventually I need to shift the gear and start mixing much more paint. But I don't know when to do it yet. I'm afraid I would know it when it's too late...

Paul Horiuchi: East and West

I took a short trip to Skagit valley and Fidalgo Island today. Looked like the valley needed at least one more week for the most colorful season.

My first destination was Museum of NW Art at La Conner. Paul Horiuchi, one of famous NW School artists in the last century, was on the show. He's most famous for collage w/ rice papers, his Japanese heritage. But there were some his expressionistic oil paintings from his early years. A bunch of his watercolor paintings of Japanese scenery was also impressive.

The second stop was an opening of Alfred Currier and John Simon's show at Insights Gallery at Anacortes. I especially liked Currier's colorful Skagit valley scenery in impasto style. You can get a sense of it at the gallery's web site: http://www.insightsgallery.com However, you need to go there and be close to the surface to see how he applied paint.

Snow may not be white

In this photo (1st one) you may not be able to see real colors on canvas but the snow is now much darker than previous one. Snow on branches are fairly dark gray. But they still look like snow. Now I'm getting some feeling how I could finish this piece.
Also I started "Valley Creek". 20"x26". From the same trip to Stanley, ID, back in Jan. With this piece, I started with much darker under-painting to avoid the same mistake. Even though the creek was very dark, the rest was covered by snow. It was mid-afternoon. Sun was behind me.

Must start darker

I knew I might fall into this pit fall with this lighter value subject, snow. But I did it anyway. I felt I was putting myself in a difficult position in very narrow value range. You can work toward lighter values on top of darker ones while you progress. But not in opposite way. I was comparing subtle differences of whites. But they're not going to stand out because majority of the surface is in similar values.

So, I told myself "Let's start over. It's not going anywhere from here." Then destroyed mainly the mid section and upper section where chains of trees reside by painting over with purplish gray. I'm very happy with the outcome now.

Snow is't always white

After trying some different tones of foreground snow, I came to understand it wasn't so white, or so light, compared to the mountains. But I left that part as is at this moment and moved on to the middle section, which was mostly uncovered area. Started adding more values for low trees.